Quitting Time

[Unknown Rider]

Nearly Retired,

 

Thank you for humbly exposing your thoughts. Really, I think it might be verbalizing the thoughts of at least some of us. The accident reports that really get me are the 10,000+ hour pilots that have died. I guess I need to realize that no matter the level of experience, helicopters are unforgiving.

 

With that in mind, and my eyes open to the danger of helicopters, I have been pondering this question. Could I recommend helicopter piloting as a career to my son (if I had one), or to an aspiring pilot?

 

And that is my question to you, Nearly Retired, could you (or would you) be able to recommend this career?

[iChris]

And Chris, I don't mean to pick nits with you. Your posts are always reasonable and well-thought-out and you are highly regarded on this board, by me as well! But in this case I think you're off-base. What you said was:

 

Quote:

Maybe its not you. Maybe a few of those companies need to think about quitting. Make sure you're not in a barrel of bad apples.

 

Companies? Bad apples? Then you list five accidents over the course of two years that happened to four different helicopter companies, only one of which was mechanical and only two of which were fatal. You somehow make a linkage between these events and "companies need to think about quitting." You justify it by saying:

 

Quote:

When you see a chain of occurring accidents there’s a reason (cause-and-effect). The root causes are not always pilot-error; however, most often that’s been where the blame falls.

You’ll have to make that determination on your own based on your knowledge of that company. As we all know, not all companies are scrupulous. Most have good people, but the pressures of getting the job done and making money often undermine their best of intentions.

 

We wonder why so many low time pilots and time builders flock to Washington each year seeking jobs and in fact get hired with little experience. Are they all really getting the training they need to make up for their lack of experience? The following was an article posted one month before the July 2011 fatal accident.

 

Smith Jr., 44, began drying cherries when he was in high school. He flew for three years with another pilot before doing it himself.

 

"It's extremely challenging. It's not a job for beginners," he said. "I've been caught in downpours so bad, in a Huey, that I couldn't see beyond the ends of the rotors.

 

I've dried in fog in near whiteout conditions." There's no time to ponder decisions. You must be mindful of power lines. Wind can be more than tricky blowing around wind breaks and coming out of steep mountain valleys.

 

Smith Jr. believes weather patterns in recent years are getting worse.

 

Ref: Daredevils fly to keep cherries dry, By Dan Wheat Capital Press

 

Then you have this funky 2012 lawsuit showing its colors.

 

Lawsuit: Pilot may have been texting

 

It’s up to each person to make his or her own determination. It appears you’ve made that determination and that “barrel of bad apples” shoe doesn’t fit. Don’t get rattled, if the shoe doesn’t fit, I must acquit.

Edited January 8, 2013 by iChris

[Nearly Retired]

Chris, Davy's comment about drying in rain so heavy that he couldn't see beyond the tips of the blades of the Huey is just hyperbole. I mean, come on. When it's raining that heavily the farmers sit us down - they're just wasting money and they know it. They're not stupid. Mostly, they wait until the rain is tapering off before they send us up.

 

Having said that, yeah I've dried in rain as well...sometimes heavy because as we all know, rain comes and goes (and sometimes comes back). But remember we're not flying, we're just hovering...over a big field with known boundaries...that we're familiar with. So what's big deal if the viz was "zero?" Davy's comment about "whiteout conditions" is a little over-the-top (no pun intended).

 

It's never that bad. We don't dry in blowing or even falling snow for that matter. However I have dried in fog too. Big deal. If it's *that* bad...if the viz is SOOOO low that it's near "whiteout"(?) and you really can't see well enough to even hover safely, then you just sit down. The farmers don't want us crashing into their cherries. Davy was just being a little over-dramatic, I would guess. Hey, he's only human and I've said/written some extremely stupid sh*t in my day.

 

By the way, our contracts with the growers do not guarantee a specific result; that would be silly. We do not ensure, promise or even imply to the farmer that his cherries won't split - sometimes such things are out of anybody's control. All we do is agree to hover over the crop when they request it.

 

Is there a need for training? Of course. That is why GW has pilots ride along as copilots during actual drying for as long as possible before assuming PIC duties. For me, the training was more circumscribed. I am by no means an expert on cherry drying, but I worked for the same grower in the same orchards for two seasons in a row. Now I would feel confident in moving to some of the other customers' fields.

 

You would not expect a guy with a freshly-minted Commercial certificate to be an EMS PIC. That would be suicide. You would not send him to fight fires or do longline work. No self-respecting operator would assign low-timers to these jobs. But pilots must also realize their own limitations. Just because the FAA says you're rated doesn't mean you're qualified for every job, even a seemingly-simple one like cherry-drying - Hey, take this R-44 and go up there and hover over those crops! Sure, I can do that! We all like to think we're the best pilot on the planet, but the fact is we're not. Honestly, what pilot is going to look himself in the mirror and say, "I'm really not good enough yet to be doing this job?" None that I know.

 

 

Chris, as for the other article you linked, yes, there were some who theorized that Stephen was texting while he was flying before he crashed. This is simply preposterous. Anyone who has EVER flown an S-55 can tell you that it's impossible to manipulate a phone while maintaining a hover in that helicopter. That old beast takes two hands (sometimes three) and two feet ALL THE TIME to fly. Collective and throttle frictions are a joke, and the collective is so heavy that you simply cannot let go of it. It's not at all like a modern turbine helicopter, not even like the S-58 which has a typically-Sikorsky heavy collective but at least has a decent friction device.

 

What I suspect is this: Stephen had a copilot with him for most of the morning. The copilot hopped out of the helicopter shortly before the wirestrike - like, right before*. Either the copilot was texting the farmers who were next in line while he and Stephen were flying together, OR Stephen had texted them before taking off when he was dropping off the copilot. We all know that text messages do not always transmit immediately - at least, mine never seem to, either outgoing or incoming. They're not like Facebook or AOL "instant messages" in that there is always "some" delay which can vary depending on the quality of the cell service in that area.

 

So even if a farmer "received" a text message immediately before Stephen crashed, I would assume that it had been sent some time prior. Now Stephen, like I did...like we all did, probably kept his cellphone on the copilot seat or on the center console, which would account for it getting ejected in the crash along with the windscreens. But it is simply inconceivable to me, an S-55 pilot, to think that single-pilot Stephen would be texting while hovering. Inconceivable. I couldn't do it, and I'm a "better" pilot than he was. JetRanger? Sure, any day of the week. Huey? Why not. But texting in a piston-engine helicopter with virtually no throttle correlator and no collective friction to speak of? No. Not possible. I'd testify to that extent if asked, and here I can make a pretty compelling expert witness.

 

The farmer in who's field Stephen crashed was part of an experiment. A group of growers who could not individually afford a "whole" helicopter got together in a consortium to contract for part of one. We would send a helicopter down and they all would share it. Personally, I never liked the idea when I first heard of it, but that's easy to say in hindsight. It caused problems right from the start. As soon as it would threaten to rain, the farmers would start calling Stephen to "get on the list." To jockey for a more advantageous position they started calling earlier and earlier. Each one wanted to be dried first, which was simply not possible. Someone's gonna be first, and someone's gonna be last.

 

After Stephen's crash we sent another helicopter to continue drying John Marker's field, but were waved off by him. We surmise that apparently he didn't want his crop saved and instead wanted to collect the insurance on it by claiming that we were somehow negligent and "caused" his crop to be unpickable because we didn't dry it. As the article mentions, GW's insurance company assessed the crop *and* another grower even went in, looked at it and offered to buy it, pick and pack it out. Marker refused. His insurance claim was denied. (None of the other members of the consortium lost their crops because of the rain that day.) See how people are? "That pilot crashed into the powerline because he was texting, and he ruined my crop! Negligence!" Uh-huh. Sure.

 

In closing, no I don't see a "barrel of bad apples." I see a bunch of helicopter owners doing a job and making money with their machines with very little risk or danger to the general public.

 

 

 

*In a very bizarre twist to this story, that copilot Brandon, the one that got out of Stephen's ship just before the accident? He was on his way up to Brewster (about a half-hour to the north) to replace the copilot who was flying in another ship and who had to get out for an appointment. While Brandon was enroute, the ship he was about to jump into crashed. Spooky? You bet! Talk about one f'ed-up kid! I mean, can you imagine being in that situation yourself - in between crashes like that? Yikes! Brandon and I had lots of long talks about the cosmic workings of that little deal. The more we talked about it, the less convincingly we could explain it. So we chose not to even try and chalked it up to, "Who knows why stuff happens sometimes?"

[Nearly Retired]

Unknown Rider asked:

And that is my question to you, Nearly Retired, could you (or would you) be able to recommend this career?

 

I recently met a young woman who's in the U.S. Marines. She is currently training to be a mechanic but she wants to learn how to fly helicopters. When she heard I was a helicopter pilot she became most enthusiastic and inquisitive. She asked the same thing: Would I recommend it?

 

I said yes and no. I gave her the lowdown on the industry - what she could reasonably expect. I told her that there were better opportunities in other segments of aviation. But mainly, in a nutshell I told her this: Most of the jobs that helicopters do cannot be done by any other means. Certain jobs will *always* be done by manned helicopters. These jobs are usually unique and peculiar, and often involve the pilots/crews to be "off the beaten path" in more ways than one. This type of lifestyle is very appealling to some people. If she is one of them, then she'd probably enjoy the career.

 

I absolutely *would* recommend this career to young people. But! I would also advise them to research it thoroughly and go in with their eyes wide open, and to NOT limit themselves to one narrow segment of the helicopter industry. Make yourself as marketable as possible, keep your options open, and then go for it!

[iChris]

In closing, no I don't see a "barrel of bad apples." I see a bunch of helicopter owners doing a job and making money with their machines with very little risk or danger to the general public.

 

Thanks for the analysis and thorough explanation of the actual facts in this case. I must agree, GW and the other operator’s from what you’re saying, appear to be doing the best possible with respect to the resources available. We’ll extend our hopes and wishes for a safe and prosperous season this year.

 

*In a very bizarre twist to this story, that copilot Brandon, the one that got out of Stephen's ship just before the accident? He was on his way up to Brewster (about a half-hour to the north) to replace the copilot who was flying in another ship and who had to get out for an appointment. While Brandon was enroute, the ship he was about to jump into crashed. Spooky? You bet! Talk about one f'ed-up kid! I mean, can you imagine being in that situation yourself - in between crashes like that? Yikes!

 

Brandon and I had lots of long talks about the cosmic workings of that little deal. The more we talked about it, the less convincingly we could explain it. So we chose not to even try and chalked it up to, "Who knows why stuff happens sometimes?"

 

You couldn’t make this stuff up. Truth is often stranger than fiction.

Edited January 9, 2013 by iChris

[Joe Blow]

Thanks for sharing Nearly Retired. Very insightful, and honest.

[mausermolt]

LOL! im never gonna live down the POS burnin up on me am ?! i was just happy it didnt singe my nicest skirt as i was "running away like a little girl". Bob i would love to go back to Washington! but im under a year contract here so i will miss the season by a few months :/

[Nearly Retired]

Keaton, you gave the term "trial by fire" a new meaning! We're just glad you made it out alive - no matter how you ran away from it BTW, I heard that Scott got on your case for not doing a 2-minute cooldown. Or was that just a rumor?

 

Hey, have fun in Haiti, mon. There's always the summer of 2014 for cherries. I have a sneaky suspicion that I'll be available.

[FormerRaft]

Nearly Retired, I just wanted to echo what many others have said. A GREAT post, and very imformative and insightful. I worked several years as a paramedic in a bad part of California's central valley, and when I left, I too had that unexplainable "feeling of dread" that you desribe. It is an instinctual thing I think, and there often is no explaining it, and in my mind, no explination is needed. It simply is. And I too would encourage you to pass your vast world of knowledge as a CFI....best of luck....

[Flying Pig]

Where did you end up after you left central ca? Or are you still there?

[FormerRaft]

Now based out of Tahoe....down in Sacramento a little bit...but leaving Fresno was (for me) at the time one of the best decisions I ever made--))